King’s Speech

Lord Wilson of Dinton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness and her wise words about universities, which one would expect from someone from Cyncoed, where I was born. I add my praise to the two maiden speeches. I look forward to learning the lessons of history from the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and am delighted to have on our Benches my noble friend Lord Young, who has been an outstanding servant to our late and great Queen. We are lucky to have them both and I look forward to their further contributions. I also echo the praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, who was a model of a Front-Bench spokesman, listening and answering carefully. She was great; I add my welcome to the noble Earl, Lord Minto.

As head of the Home Civil Service, I normally kept away from foreign policy and defence because I had weighty colleagues such as the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Hannay, my noble friend Lord Dannatt, and Lord Guthrie. They were terrifically able, so I could concentrate on domestic matters. However, the world is out of joint. I am alarmed and concerned about the wider horizon. In my experience, foreign policy and defence must be the two top priorities of any Government of any political colour, backed up by firm law and order, courteously expressed, and a strong economy. We do not have those now. Unless you have good, strong foreign policy and defence, the other important functions of the state—education, health, welfare, and so on—are at risk. Foreign policy and defence are our insurance. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, at present we are not sufficiently insured. We are very much at risk. We have lots of fine words, but fine words do not stop bullets.

I am therefore very glad to welcome the appointment of the Foreign Secretary to this House. It adds weight to the proceedings of this House to have someone with such experience and background. We are lucky to have the responsibility and privilege of holding the Foreign Secretary to account. I hope we also have the opportunity, at times, of influencing his thinking. It is an important development; in a non-political way, I welcome it.

The Foreign Secretary will receive a lot of briefing—far too much. On a domestic matter, I hope he has a copy of the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, delivered on Monday, in which he revealed something which shocked me. He said:

“All Ministers of State in this House are now expected to work for nothing”.—[Official Report, 13/11/23; col. 294.]


I was astonished at that. It is because the number of Ministers in the Commons has grown. When I was Cabinet Secretary, I advised the Prime Minister several times about the balance between Ministers in different ranks and the numbers of salaries we had in the different Houses. I always protested at the thought of 14 out of 30 Whips and Ministers being unpaid. It is demeaning to the House and it is wrong for the Ministers. I do not expect the Minister of State to answer about this when he replies, but I do hope the future noble Lord, the new Foreign Secretary, is aware that he is paid when his Minister of State is not.

I will listen to the Foreign Secretary with huge interest. He will of course talk about Gaza and Ukraine. Underneath that, there are two areas I will listen to very closely. One is his thinking on China. He has a lot of experience of China. I suspect he may have changed it. I think we will want to learn from him. What makes the Chinese think? They have a complex, ancient way of thinking, which is very different from ours. We could easily misinterpret them by treating them as if they were westerners. We need to be very careful to get them right and get the best advice and thoughts about our dealings with China. That is hugely important, as my noble friend Lady D’Souza said in her wise words earlier.

The second issue on which I will listen to the Foreign Secretary closely is on our position in the world following our departure from the European Union. We joined the Common Market in large part to give ourselves a greater place in the world and to be of assistance to the United States in their dealings with Europe. Now we have left Europe, we are on our own again, back where we were. We have not yet worked out or said how we will make the most of that position. Some good thinking has been expressed. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, had some very good ideas. It is very important that the Foreign Secretary has time to think about that and give a lead on it.